Are You Coming To The Tree?
by Asumcrey
Summary: One-Shot! Peeta's POV! This one shot is about Peeta's final interview in Mockingjay, so if you didn't read the book, or didn't see the movie, it will contain spoilers for you. Peeta is struggling, he is fighting with himself, with his own thoughts. His memories of Katniss are not that clear at the moment how they were before.


**This is my first story on here, what's a one-shot. It's about Peeta's final interview in Mockingjay with a plus scene at the end. Hope you enjoy it! **

**P.S.: Sorry for my english.**

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><p><strong>Are You <strong>

**Coming ****To The Tree?**

Rebellion. War. Contradiction. Refusing the system. All of this is needless, because we won't achieve anything with beginning a war! I don't.. I don't know what kind of problems people are having with the Capitol.. I don't know why they're angry. _No!_ I say to myself. _You have to fight, Peeta… You have to endure everything, for Katniss. For yourself. You have to get through this, you can't give up now. You can't let the Trackerjacker venom to take control over your mind and make you lose your common sense! _It's difficult to tell myself what's right and what's not. It gets harder every time. My thoughts are being unclear when I'm thinking about the girl who I loved that much. _I loved. _I repeat. _I love! _I command myself. _I still love her! I have to love her._

The last few weeks went down like this. I have been fighting against myself, with my own thoughts, all day long. I've had some thoughts about getting rid of the pain and difficulty of my situation, but I just can't do it. I can't die right now, it's not that simple. It won't solve anything.

I've had to shoot a propo recently, because Snow have told me that I have to talk about the rebels' recent actions. There were uprisings in District Nine, Ten, and of course, Eleven. I've seen short recordings about the people fighting against the Peacekeepers, which means they are taking actions against the Capitol. I have to able to do this! I have to join the battle. The others are fighting for their freedom from the Capitol. I have to fight for my freedom against the strong venom in my brain. They were talking about how they're able to change me with this process. Of course they didn't tell me face-to-face, but I overheard some scientists' conversation. There's a part of my brain what's scientifically called 'amygdala'. This particular section is known as the brain's fear center. Well, they are practically injecting the Trackerjacker venom into my brain, and then they show me a picture or short video of Katniss. The amygdala is next to our long-term memory center, which means they can use my fear against my memories. The process called hijacking in short: The injected venom sends a strong stimulus to my amygdala, what results in fear, they make me to look at a picture of Katniss, and all my memories about her are slowly going to change, because they are making me to be afraid of her. And the worst part of all is that I can not do anything about it.

_Katniss is a mutt!_ My thoughts about the hijacking made me remember her. Almost all my memories of her are..bad. _No, she's not a mutt. She's a nice.. _She's everything, but nice. _She's a girl who saved my life multiple times. _This is right. I have to remember that now. _Deep breath, Peeta. _I hear footsteps approaching. The door of my cell opened.

"Come on, handsome!" a Peacekeeper punches her weapon between my ribs, the impact was so strong the air got struck in my lungs. I almost collapsed, but I managed to stand still. We're slowly heading to Snow's mansion from the Tribute Center. With time, my hearing gets clear, and I can finally concentrate on something else than pain. I've become an expert in tolerating pain after some weeks in here. She pushes my hands behind my back, pushing me before her like a fugitive. Oh, of course… I am their fugitive. After some minutes of silence the woman speaks first. "What's wrong little boy? Your girlfriend is not here to save you, eh?" The expression on her face is reflecting on the walls. Mine is, too. "Oh, don't look like that. I'm going to feel sorry for you at the end _Lover Boy_."

Every bit of my body is shaking from her last words. I clunch my fists, but thanks to my breathing technique I am slowly calming down, what means I can prevent her from shooting me. I know what she wants to get: an opportunity to kill me. But she won't get it.

Anger. Anger generates fear sometimes. Fear. _No, no. _A voice is talking in my head. He's like me. He is me, but he isn't. It's strange, unexplainable. _The girl doesn't care about you, she never did. She's a mutt, created by the rebels! She wants to destroy you as much she wants to get rid of the Capitol! _This isn't true.. this can't be true. He speaks once again. _She chose the rebellion, not you. _I shake my head. I get my mind blank so I'm not thinking about all of these terrible things.

After we arrived to the mansion, a well-dressed man welcomed the woman.

"Espery, bring him here!" He said.

"Where are we going?" These are my first words on our long way. They were difficult to say out loud because my throat is still burning after I've been shouting for hours. I heard Johanna's screams too, we are having adjoining cells. The Peacekeeper - Espery - squeezes my arm, pushing me harder. I can feel her grin on my neck somehow.

"You're going to show your acting skills again, _handsome_." She says 'handsome' on a mocking tone. My face is full of bruises, my eyes are sunken in. I'm everything now, but handsome. "Don't worry, they're gonna use a lot of make-up on your ugly face, and you're gonna look as good as you did some months ago! Okay, maybe you'll be a lot unglier than that." She isn't keeping her joy in secret, she laughs out loud. I am tolerating her words, I have nothing else to do. If I would hit her - and I thought about that a lot of times - then one of the guards are going to sedate me. There's no chance to escape.

"Why am I going to be on air again?" The voice I hear still seems foreign to me, however it's mine. What are they going to do with it? What kind of sick trick are they going to use to get my voice 'normal'?

"Well, keep this a secret, okay? Shh" She acts like a total lunatic, chuckling and talking like an idiot. "While all the eyes are going to be on the screens in every Districts, and they're gonna watch your ugly face, a special force of the Capitol is going to visit your little girlfriend, leaving her a surprise. It's gonna be fun!" It takes some moments to get what she was talking about: They're gonna attack District Thirteen. _It's not my problem._ I think. _What the.. Yes, it is! She saved me countless times. It's my turn now._ The effect of the venom is slowly taking over me again. _Why should I help? Yes, she may have saved me a lot of times before, but she became a monster. She left me alone… and she didn't come to the lightning tree at midnight. _I'm mad at her, but this isn't the right thing to do. _I have to warn her._

_District Twelve.. What happened to it? _I've distracted myself from Katniss with this interesting thing. I didn't hear anything about Twelve since I've got here. They didn't say it has rebelled or not. Another question: Why is Katniss in District Thirteen? What is she doing there? _Why should I warn her? She's a mu…_ She betrayed Twelve so she could be the voice of the revolution. My whole body is shaking from the sudden realization. _She's a mutt! A weapon! _My family.. they are alone. They didn't love me at all, but that doesn't mean that I can't love them. _Family_. This word is a bit strange now. I don't have a family… After the moment I went in the arena, they abandoned me. What are they doing at this very moment? They're probably getting ready for watching the broadcast what the Capitol have announced already. But I know one thing for sure: they are not worrying about me.

_She's not a mutt. She's like me. She's like anyone else. Those wolf-like creatures were mutants, but Katniss is still a human being. Katniss is not a mutt, she's a traitor. _

A feeling is running through me what I didn't really feel towards Katniss until now. Disgust.

_Peeta, calm down. The venom is driving you crazy, this is not you. _I remind myself. Now I am slowly beginning to make a list of things what I'm sure are true.

_My name is Peeta Mellark._

_I am seventeen years old._

_District Twelve is my home._

_I've been reaped for the Seventy-Fourth Annual Hunger Games._

_I wanted to save the person I love the most there._

_I survived._

_We both have survived._

_Our love…_

No, I stop myself. There's no such thing between us as love. For her, all of the things we've gone through were just an act of defiance, nothing more. It hurts to admit it to myself, but that's the truth, she didn't love me. She doesn't love me. If she did, she would've been stopped shooting her propos after I've been actually begging for her. She wanted to live, and she didn't have the heart to kill me. She felt pity, not love. I continue making my list.

_Katniss' act of defiance made the Capitol angry._

_They have made a new rule for the Third Quarter Quell, they have probably changed the envelope._

_I volunteered so I could save her.. so we could save each other._

_But she betrayed me._

_She didn't come to the tree as she promised._

_She became a rebel._

_She became the face of the rebellion._

_Katniss is the Mockingjay._

_The Capitol captured me._

_They have been torturing me for weeks._

_And I am going to save District Thirteen at all costs._

The girl on fire betrayed me, that's true, but this isn't an excuse for me letting a whole District to be destroyed. I am not able to let thousands and thousands of people die just because I'm mad at that girl.

I don't want her to die either.

**I~I~I**

I'm sitting in my chair, we're on air. Caesar is talking right now, but the people behind the cameras are pointing at me, which means I'm going to have to talk soon. I have some honest words to Katniss, and this is the last time I'll try to convince her to stop. _No, she won't ever change! _Yes, yes she will! I shake my head again before the cameras are focusing on me. There's a monitor right before me where I can see myself. The makeup team did a good job. I'm still looking like someone who didn't sleep and eat in the last few days, but it's better than it was. Next to the monitor a hologram pops up with a text on it. That's what I have to read in.

"Good night for everyone! I would like to tell you that there have been a dam failure in District Five. The consequences are being perceived nation-wide. There have been some blackouts, even in the Capitol. And we should expect a lot of unexpected blackouts in the next some days.

And that's when it happens. Something I would never think of. She appears on the screen for some seconds. _Katniss. _In District Twelve... at least what have remained of it. I feel a teardrop running down my cheek, I thought she betrayed our home. But no, she didn't. The Capitol destroyed the only place where I could've gone home.

"Are you, are you coming to the tree?" A song plays in the background as she's walking on the _remains_ of Twelve. I think the Capitol took over the control of their broadcast, because I see my face again on the screen. I can see everything what I'm feeling right now: bewilderment, astonishment, pain, anger.

"Is that you, Katniss?" I whisper, my eyes are teary. My voice is shaking. "How will this end? What will be left from the world after a war? It has no sense at all! No one is safe now. Not in the Capitol…" I'm hesitating, I take a deep breath. That was a good choice because the rebels interrupted the broadcast again so they wouldn't hear me anyway.

"Where the dead man called out for his love to flee." I hear her voice again. The last time I heard it we were five years old, and it's still beautiful.

This is my last chance. I can't get distracted.

"..not in any of the districts." I take a short break, pushing my lips together for a moment. "They're coming, Katniss!" I shout. Two hands are getting hold of me, they're beginning to pull me away from the camera. "They're gonna kill everyone! And you.. in Thirteen.. are gonna be dead by morning!"

I feel dull pain in my head, black spots are appearing before my eyes. The last thing I see before I lose my consciousness is my own blood as it splatters the tiles.

**I~I~I**

"He's in there." I hear a familiar voice. _Gale_. The last thing I remember is that I was in my cell and a strange type of gas began to spread in there, and I've blacked out by it. And now I'm awake, and I know I'm safe. They won't hurt me again, I'm in Thirteen now.

I hear footsteps approaching, I begin to shake. _No.._ She's here. They still didn't kill her! Why are they so stupid they can't see under her disguise? I slowly tilt my head to the right so I can see who's there. I've been right. It's her. The mutt.

She's crying… she's crying. Why is she doing that? She wants to mislead me so she could attack me when I won't expect it. That can't happen. I have to be faster.

"Peeta…" She whispers, I can hear relief in her voice.

_Of course you're relieved, girl on fire! I'm finally here so you could attack and kill me. Well, you won't._

I'm collecting all my strength I left. I've been sleeping all the way here so I think I should be able to defeat her in a fight. _Me, or you, girl on fire. I will fight until my last breath._

I jump off the bead and I drop myself on her, with all of my weight. My fingers lock around her neck, and I push her to the wall. The screen what I pushed her to have shattered in hundreds of pieces, but she's still struggling. I drop her on the table, and then I spin and drop her on the ground. Haymitch is trying to take me off her.

He's thinking that this mutt is on their side.. No, it isn't! Someone's taking their hands on me, but I hit them with my right elbow. The mutt's eyes are turning a strange color, its face is purple. Good. I'm about to win and help the world to get rid of that girl.

Sharp pain runs through my body, someone drops me on the ground. I failed.

An interesting song comes to my mind what I don't remember where I've heard.

_Are you, are you coming to the tree?_


End file.
